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HIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 



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I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, f 



LEWIS D. CAMPBELL, 

OF OHIO. 




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LEWIS D. CAMPBELL, 

OF OHIO. 



The. following Brief Biographical Sketch is taken from. Barnes' 
Historij of the Congress of the United States. 

Lewis D. Campbell was born in Franklin, Warren count}^ Ohio, 
August 9, 1811. He attended school in Franklin until he was four- 
teen years old, when he was transferred to the farm, on which he 
labored until he was seventeen. From 1828 until 18:>1 he served an 
apprenticeship in the office of the Cincinnati Gazette. In the latter 
year he went to Hamilton, Ohio, where he published a weekly 
newspaper advocating the election of Henry Clay to the presi- 
dency. While editing and printing his journal he studied law, and 
in 1835 was admitted to the bar. Ho soon acquired a large and 
profitable practice. 

In 1848 Mr. Campbell was elected a representative in Congress 
over General Baldwin ; in 1850, over Judge Vance; in 1852, 1854, 
and 1856, over Hon. C. L. Vallandigham, and in 1870, over Hon. R. 
C. Schenck. During his first service in Congress, from 1849 until 
1858, slavery was the all-absorbing question. He participated 
prominently in the debates, uniformly maintaining the position 
that, while the Southern States should enjoy all their rights guar- 
anteed by the Constitution, slavery should be excluded from the 
Territories by Congressional enactment. 

In the Thirty-third Congress, when the L'reat question of repeal- 
ing the Missouri Compromise came before the House of Hepresen- 
tatives, he was selected, in a conference of the opposition members, 
as their leader on the floor. Being a good parliamentarian and a 
I'eady debater, with a good voice, he discharged the duties thus as- 
signed him, during that long and ever-memorable struggle, with 
eminent satisfiaction to the friends of freedom, meeting in discussion 
the ablest men of the South. The discussion between him and 
Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, on the relative advan- 
tages of free and slave labor, gave him rank with the ablest de- 
baters of Congress. 

At the opening of the Thirty-fourth Congress, Mr. Campbell re- 
ceived the votes of a large majority of his party for the Speaker- 



[2] 

ship, and would i^rohably have been elected had he continued to 
be a candidate. But in consequence of pledges exacted of him, 
which he thought would dishonor him if made, he peremptorily 
withdrew his name. Aftci- a struggle, prolonged many weeks, 
Hon. N. P. Banks was elected. During this Congress, Mr. Camp- 
bell served as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The 
arduous duties thus devolving upon him were discharged with 
great ability. Among the measures reported by him, which be- 
came laws, was the Tariff Act of 1857, which levied the lowest 
average duties on imports of any act passed within the last half 
centur3^ 

It was during this Congress that Preston S. Brooks made the as- 
sault on Charles Sumner in the old senate chamber. Mr. Campbell 
was one of the first to reach the senator after he was stricken 
down. On the following day he introduced the resolution for an 
investigation, was chairman of the committee appointed for that 
purpose, and made a report for the expulsion of Brooks. The 
challenge which the latter subsequentlj- sent Mr. Burlingame was 
one of the fruits of the assault on Mr. Sumner. Upon the pressing 
request of Mr. Burlingame, Mr. Campbell took charge of the affair 
as his friend (General Joseph Lane, of Oregon, being the friend of 
Mr. Brooks). The correspondence on the ])art of Mr. Burlingame 
was wholly written by Mr. Campbell, who still retains all the orig- 
inal papers. It was through his skillful management that Mr. 
Burlingame was carried safely through without a stain uj^on his 
honor. 

When the Southern rebellion commenced, Mr. Campbell at once 
ardently espoused the cause of the Union. In the spring and 
summer of 1861 he assisted in raising several regiments. In the 
autumn following he organized the Sixty-ninth Ohio re2;iment, and 
was commissioned as its colonel. In the winter of 1861-2 he was 
in command of Camp Chase, where he received and kept as pris- 
oners of war the officers taken at Fort Donelson and in other bat- 
tles. In April following, he went, under order, with his regiment 
to Tennessee, where he served in the Army of the Cumberland 
until the failure of his health unfitted him for the service, and he 
reluctantly retired. 

In 1866 Mr. Campbell Avas appointed minister to Mexico — the 
successor to Hon. Thomas Corwin. In November of that j^ear, ac- 
companied by General Sherman, he proceeded on his mission. The 
French army of occupation and other forces of Maximilian were 
then in Mexico, holding the capital and other principal cities. 



[3] 

President Juarez and his cabinet officers had been driven to a 
point near the northwestern border. Failing to reach the govern- 
ment of that republic in its theti migratory condition, Mr. Camp- 
bell was directed by Mr. Seward, secretary of state, to make his 
official residence, temporarily, in New Orlefms. He remained 
there until June following, when, tired of that kind of service 
abroad, he resigned. 

Taking his seat as a member of the Forty-second Congress in 
March, 1871, he was at once recognized as possessing that com- 
rhanding influence which is attained only by long and honorable 
public service. Acting with the minority, he was not placed in 
such position as to take the leading part which had fallen to his 
lot in previous congressional service, yet his influence was very 
perceptible in the promotion of salutary legislation. But few re- 
mained who had heard his eloquence in former Congresses, j'^et his 
latest efl'orts were heard with that attention and interest which 
evinced that he had not lost his power in argument and oratory. 

In April, 1873, immediately after the close of the Forty-second 
Congress, Mr. Campbell was elected a delegate to the convention 
to revise and amend the constitution of the State of Ohio. After 
the convention assembled at Columbus he w^as elected, on the 22d 
of May, its vice-president b}^ a unanimous vote. 

In politics Mr. Campbell commenced his career in the school of 
Clay, Webster, and others, and was alwaj'S an active member of 
the Whig party until its dissolution. Subsequently he was identi- 
fied with the Eepublican party. After the war of the rebellion 
closed he left that party, believing that b}' its reconstruction and 
other acts it had abandoned the principles upon which the war had 
been prosecuted, and that its measures of centralization \vere anti- 
Kepublican and of imperial tendency. He has since co-operated 
\<'ith the Democratic party, and supported Mr. Seymour for the 
presidency in 18G8, Mr. Greeley in 1872, and Mr. Tilden in 1876. 

During the last twenty years Mr. Campbell has been engaged in 
agricultural pursuits on his large and fertile farm on the Great 
Miami river, near the city of Hamilton, in which he resides. It has 
fallen to the lot of few men now living to take a more pi-ominent 
and influential part in the history of the country than Mr. Camp- 
bell. None have had the good of the country more at heart, or 
have discharged their duties with more absolutely unblemished in- 
tegrity and honor. , 



Mr. Campbell's ancestors, paternal and maternal, emigrated from 
the Highlands of Scotland and settled in Virginia and Pennsylva- 
nia. His maternal grandfather, Andrew Small, at the age of 
eighteen years enlisted in the army of the American Kevolution, 
in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the 1st daj' of July, 1775, 
in the rifle regiment of Colonel Harris, and served in the severe 
northern campaign of that jciiv under General Montgomery. He 
served in the war most of the time until 1781. 

Mr. Campbell's father, Samuel Campbell, was born in Yirginia. 
He emigrated to the territory" northwest of Ohio in 1796 and set- 
tled in the Miami valley. He served in the war of 1812 iinder 
General Harrison. 

Mr. Campbell's mother was born in Pennsylvania, March 20, 
1785, and now, aged ninety-five years, lives near Franklin, Ohio, 
enjoying good health, on the same tract of land on which her 
father settled in 1796, when the Miami valley was an unbroken 
wilderness. Her father served in the "war of the American Revo- 
lution, her husband served in the war of 1812, and two of her sons 
and two of her grandsons served in the Union army in the late 
war of the Eebellion. 

Mr. Campbell married the only daughter of John Rcily, deceased, 
Avho was born in Eockbridge county, Yirginia, and al the age of sev- 
enteen 3'ears, volunteered in the army of the Revolution in Virginia, 
and served in the south under General Nathaniel Greene. He was in 
the battles of Guillord Court House, Eutaw Springs, and King's 
Mountain. In 1789 he emigrated to the Northwestern Territory, 
and settled where Cincinnati now stands. He was clerk of the 
first Territorial Legislature northwest of the Ohio river, and was 
a member of the Convention of 1802, which framed the first Con- 
stitution of the State of Ohio. 

When the war of the late Rebellion commenced, Mrs. Lewis D. 
Campbell had two brothers living: James Reil}', the oldest, resid- 
ing in Texas, and Robert, the j'oungest, in Ohio. Both went into 
the Avar and were killed in battle — colonels at the head of their 
regiments — the former in the Confederate ami}-, at Bayou Teche, 
Louisiana, the latter in the Union army, in the battle of Chancel- 
lorville. Virginia. 



In 1877, some of Mr. Campbell's friends in Ohio desired tliat he 
should be elected United States Senator. Letters were sent by 
them to several prominent statesmen of both parties, who had 
served with him in Congress, and their replies were written tor 



[5] 

publication. When consulted on the subject, Mr. Campbell ob- 
jected to making them public at that time, because such a course 
might place him in the false light of opposition to Mr. Pendleton 
and other gentlemen who were candidates, and whose claims he 
did not wish to antagonize. Consequently they wore withheld. 

Mr. Campbell has many relatives and friends residing in the dif- 
ferent States of the Union, particularly in the west, some of whom 
served with him both in peace and in war. Three of these letters 
are now published in connection with the biographical sketch. 
They will be gratifying testimonials of the high estimate in which 
his public services are held as well by political opponents as by 
friends. 

Mr. Washburne is a prominent republican, and has been Gover- 
nor of Maine. General Banks is a republican of national reputa- 
tion, and has been Speaker of the United States House of Repre- 
sentatives, and Governor of Massachusetts. John Letcher 
is a distinguished southern democrat, and has been Governor 
of Virginia. Letters, similar in spirit, were also received from 
Governor Aikin of South Carolina, and other prominent gentlonien 
of both parties in other States, who served with Mr. Campbell in 
Congress. 

LETTER OF GOVERNOR WASHBURNE, OF MAINE. 

Portland, Deceynber 11, 1877. 
H. P. K. Peck, Esq. : 

Dear Sir : — I have your letter, and it gives me great pleasure to 
say that I have a ver}' distinct recollection of your friend Colonel 
Campbell. I served with him in the 32d, 33d, 34th, and 35th Con- 
gresses. He was ready and able in debate, a skillful parliamenta- 
rian, and a pi'ompt and fearless leader. 
Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

L WASHBURNE, Jr. 

LETTER OP GENERAL N. P. BANKS, OF MASSACHU- 
SETTS. 

House op Representatives, | 
Washington, D. C, \nh January, 1878. ) 
My Dear Sir : — It is wholly by accident that 3'our letter of De- 
cember 4th has been delayed. In the multitude of letters we re- 
ceive, if one is mislaid for an hour it passes altogether from recol- 



[6] 

lection, unless, in some unexpected wsiy, it is called to attention. 
JLoolving among old letters this morning I find at this moment (6 
o'clock A. M.) joar letter, and hasten to repl}' to it. 

No man, in my time, has shown greater ability as Chairman of 
the important Committee of Ways and Means than was exhibited 
by Mr. Lewis D. Canipbell, who held that position in that Congress 
when I was Speaker of the House. Other men in that position 
have been backed by powerful party majorities. Mr. Campbell 
represented a party which for the first and onl}- time in the history 
of Congress, I believe, was. while in the possession of the organi- 
zation of the House, in a minority. The Speaker was elected by 
11 minority of votes. The opposition was composed of the ablest 
men of the Democratic and Whig parties. Their power was rep- 
resented in the committee according to their numerical strength by 
their ablest men. The management of the public business in the 
House devolved upon a part}' composed almost entirely of new 
members, not one of whom, I think, had ever been chairman of a 
committee, and it confronted every day for two j^ears men who 
had controlled the government, with but momentary exceptions, 
for three-quarters of a century with despotic power. The meas- 
ures of that Congress forced upon the countrj', by the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, were mostly without precedt3nt, as the men 
wdio supported them were without experience as leaders; and the 
adventitious personal incidents that attended the daily sessions of 
Congress — like the murder of a servant at a hotel breakfast table 
by a member of the House, and the assault of Charles Sumner in 
his seat in the Senate chamber by another member of the House — 
were without parallel. The foundations of that great history 
which has since commanded the attention of the civilized world 
were laid in the House of Eepresentatives of that Congress. The 
House stood by itself and for itself alone. Every other depart- 
ment of the government was overwhelmingl}' against it and its 
principles. And 3'et the minorit}- of the House, charged with the 
direction of its business, never lost a single measure in the memo- 
rable contests of two years. 

Mr. Campbell, as chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
Means, was the leader of the House. That committee had not 
then, as now, been stripped of its principal jurisdictions. It would 
grieve me, if by any mischance 1 omitted to say in answer to jouv 
inquiries, that he was singularly successful and able in the dis- 
charge of his duties — always ready, bold, eloquent, thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the political history of the country and its industrial 



[ 7 J 

and public interests, with the pi-ecedents of the House and the 
principles of parliamentary law ; unhesitating and fearless, as well 
as honoi'able and manly in the semi-personal controversies which 
constantly occurred, and always comprehensive and just in his 
treatment of public questions, he won the respect of all parties in 
the House, and richly deserves that his services in that political 
crisis should be remembered by his countrymen. 

I regret that this note, written in haste, should so imperfectlj'' 
portray the public character of Mr. Campbell in the period to 
which your letter refers, and I can only express, in addition to 
what 1 have thus said, my admiration of his character as 1 then 
saw it, and as 1 now with unreserved pleasure recollect. 

With sincere regret for my delay in replying to your note, and 

the hast}' and the unreserved expression of my respect for yourself 

and 3'our friend, I remain, Yours, etc., etc., 

JS^. P. BANKS. 
H. P. K. Peck, Esq., Hamilton, Ohio. 



LETTEE OP GOVERNOK JOHN LETCHEE, OF VIEGINIA. 

Lexington, Va., December 14, 1877. 
H. P. K. Peck, Esq., Hamilton, Ohio : 

Dear Sir : — I received your letter of the 6th instant yesterday 
morning, and reply to 3'our inquiries with pleasure. 

Col. Campbell and myself were members of the House of Eep- 
resentatives of the United States for eight years, and a part of the 
time served as members of the Committee of Ways and Means, of 
which committee he was chairman. I found him intelligent, in- 
dustrious, and efficient — always in ])lace, prompt, and well-informed, 
and his business well in hand. I have rarely known a more faith- 
ful, upright, and in all respects i-eliable man in public as well as in 
private life. He is a man of strict integrity, sincere in his friend- 
ships, and true to the requirements of duty and honor. He is a 
ready debater and well-informed parliamentarian. He is fearless 
and manly, incorruptible, and of sterling independence of charac- 
ter. Indeed, he possesses as many of the finer qualities of head and 
heart as any man in the circle of my acquaintance. 

I would be pleased to see Colonel Campbell elected to the United 
States Senate, as he would ])rove, I am sure, a faithful representa- 
tive of Ohio's interest and honor. 
With great respect. 

Your obd't ser't, 

JOHN LETCHER. 



[8 ] 



LETTER OF HON. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, OF GEOR- 
GIA. 

[This letter has heretofore been published with the approba- 
tion of Mr. Stephens.] 

Liberty Hall, | 

Crawfordsville, Ga., November 15, 1870. j 
Hon. Lewis D. Campbell, Hamiltoyi, Ohio : 

IAy Dear Sir :■ — I thank j'ou for copies of those speeches made 
by 3'ou, and which you did me the kindness to send. They were 
received hy the mail yesterday. I have ixiad tliem with interest 
and pleasure. 

You will allow me also to say to you, that I was greatly gratified 
to learn, as I did through the new!<]japers soon after, the result of 
your election to the next Congress. 

Your speech (at Delaware 1 believe it was) on the issues in the 
great struggle, which is to come off in this country in 1872, be- 
tween the friends of constitutional liberty and the advocates of 
doctrines leading to consolidated empire, has the ring of the metal 
of the noblest of our ancestors — not only of the Shermans, the 
Franklins, Jeffersons, and Washingtons of our native land, but of 
the Lockes, the Cokes, the Hampdens, and Sidneys of England, 
from whose teachings the general ideas of our matchless system of 
true representative government was to no small extent derived. 
As in England the ])rinciples of ^- Magna Charta " can never die, so 
with us the great essential principles which underlie the whole 
superstructure of our liberties can never become '■'dead issiies.'" 

The fact can not be disguised, and it is mischievous folly for the 
public sentinels upon the watch-tower to ignore it, that the tenden- 
cies of the doctrines of the present ruling party in the United 
States are to consolidation, centralism and Empire ! 

My object, however, was only to thank you for your kindness 
and to let you know how much I have been gratified by the peru- 
sal of 3^our speeches referred to. 

With sentiments of high esteem and personal regard, I am. 
Yours trul}', 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



If a candidate for President in the 
East be nominated by the Democratic 
convention at Cincinnati the friends of 
Mr. Campbell may then present his 
name for consideration as a candidate 
for Vice-President. 

They have conferred with him on this 
subject and he object* to the use of his 
name at any time or in any manner 
that will be prejudicial to the prospects 
of either of the statesmen who are can- 
didates for the Presidential nomination, 
or if it would be an element of discoid 
in the convention. He regards the life 
of the great Republic as in imminent peril 
and believes it the duty of partriotism 
to subordinate all personal desires and 
ambitions to the success of the Demo- 
cratic ticket. 



